


Tremors

by AmberEyedLover



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Admitting, Earthquakes, Feelings, Friendship, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-25
Updated: 2012-08-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:51:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberEyedLover/pseuds/AmberEyedLover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now I was twenty seven, touring the world and living my dream, the last thing I had expected to be doing was to be sat shaking my hands tight around the neck of my guitar which I was just on the way to putting away as I tried to calm my breath in the doorway of the dressing room which I shared with Isaac. <br/>‘’Dude, are you okay?’’ Isaac’s voice sounded far away as the last shake and rattle went away. <br/>‘’Yeah’’ I called back to him, my voice surprisingly calm as my heart crashed. <br/>‘’Fuck’’ He laughed, ‘’I’m so glad that didn’t happen while we were on stage.’’ Nodding to him, I swallowed a little before I pressed my head back against the frame and took a few deep breaths, hearing footsteps coming down the hall, I stood and walked over to my bags which were on the other side of the room, placing my guitar on the stand again, I moved closer to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tremors

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to bring across the fact, that in this fic Tommy and Adam are just friend's that there is nothing going on between them but just friendship.

I think my earliest memory was when I was four years old and was dressed in my favourite dinosaur Pj’s, at first it was a little rumble and then the room began to shake, the pictures on the wall rattling and my bed side lamp falling to the floor and smashing, I was scared, I felt like I was going to fall out of my bed and smash on the floor like my lamp.  
I remember calling out for my parents but I knew they weren’t home, but my sister was, to me as a four year old, I thought that she was dead because of the silence, apart from the things smashing, clutching my small dinosaur teddy, I curled up small on my bed and cried, I think I even wet myself.

But soon enough, Lisa was calling out my name, her arms folding around me as I grabbed her tightly before she moved us to my bedroom doorframe and stood there with me as the quake rode through, for what felt like a lifetime was in fact only two minutes…120 seconds of time. Even as the shaking stopped and it grew silent, I held on to Lisa tightly, scared that those shakes were going to come back and take my big sister with them.   
‘Tommy, it is okay, the earthquake is over.’ Is what I remember her telling me as she tried to pry my arms from her legs, but I refused to let her go until my parents came walking through the door quickly about fifteen minutes later, I had let go of Lisa and ran straight in to my dad’s arms.

I refused to sleep alone for the next two weeks.

 

Years later, I remembered that moment when another quake hit, I was nine I think, I had just gotten out of bed for a drink of water and was halfway down the stairs when it happened, it was stronger than the one I had felt at four years old, it was strong enough to make me lose my footing and fall down the remaining steps where I landed on some broken photo frames which had been knocked off the walls, this time the quake lasted less than a minute, but I was still scared.  
I think it was that one which gave me my fear of them, whether or not it was because I suffered cuts to my arms and hands because of fallen or because of the broken ankle, either way I found myself nervous all the time there was a slight rattle, my parents took me to the doctors and I was prescribed as having anxiety and at nine, I had no idea what that was, I just thought that it was normal to jump every time a picture was knocked over by accident or a car went past fast enough to shake the windows.

I guess that as I got older again, I soon forgot about my fear with the tablets in my system and stopped placing glasses of water around the place before sitting down in front of them, watching the water for any kind of moment which couldn’t be explained.

I went on living like a normal teenager until I was seventeen, back living at home because I was kicked out by my roommate who wanted to move his girlfriend and another friend in. another earthquake hit, hard and fast without any warning, I remember hearing the loud bang and then crash before my mom’s voice yelling out my name. Everything seemed to echo around me as if I was in some sort of tunnel, trapped.   
I had been walking out my room when it happened, so I fell to the floor in the doorframe, knees to my chest and hands over my ears as I squeezed my eyes shut. That afternoon I was told that a gas pipe had exploded and caused a wall to collapse which brought a house to the ground, killing the family inside, that house was only a few down from where we lived. It was also the day I lost my childhood best friend.

 

Now I was twenty seven, touring the world and living my dream, the last thing I had expected to be doing was to be sat shaking my hands tight around the neck of my guitar which I was just on the way to putting away as I tried to calm my breath in the doorway of the dressing room which I shared with Isaac.   
‘’Dude, are you okay?’’ Isaac’s voice sounded far away as the last shake and rattle went away.   
‘’Yeah’’ I called back to him, my voice surprisingly calm as my heart crashed.   
‘’Fuck’’ He laughed, ‘’I’m so glad that didn’t happen while we were on stage.’’ Nodding to him, I swallowed a little before I pressed my head back against the frame and took a few deep breaths, hearing footsteps coming down the hall, I stood and walked over to my bags which were on the other side of the room, placing my guitar on the stand again, I moved closer to them.

‘’Are you both okay?’’ Adam’s voice was filled with concern as I started to search through my bag for the little bottle of pills which I took everywhere with me, ‘’Tommy’’ feeling a hand on my shoulder as I undone the bottle’s lid, I jumped quickly, sending the bottle flying to the ground, tables scattering as I breathed out. ‘’shit, you’re shaking like  leaf’’ Adam spoke out before his arms wrapped around me tightly, there were other voices in the room but I couldn’t point them out as I let myself hold on to Adam just as tightly, my hands still shaking and heart still thrashing in my chest from the quake and jumping. ‘’I didn’t scare him that much’’ Adam said to someone before I shook my head,   
‘’It wasn’t just that’’ I admitted to him quietly and moved away.   
‘’The quake?’’ he asked as I nodded and someone pressed a bottle of cold water in to my hand.

Putting it down on the table, I knelt down and started to pick the pills up and replacing them in to the bottle again.   
‘’What are those?’’ Isaac asked as I stood again and shook two in to my hand before taking them.   
‘’Anxiety tables’’ I told him before glancing around the room to see the whole band, dancers and Lane staring at me, waiting for an answer, ‘’I never thought I would have to tell anyone, I thought you would worry too much if you knew’’ I told them.  
‘’That’s why you always fill out your own medical forms’’ Lane spoke out before I nodded.   
‘’How long have you been taken them, I’ve never seen you before’’ Adam asked as I swallowed slightly,   
‘’since I was nine and we had an earthquake’’ I told him, my eyes meeting his blue ones.   
‘’Because of the earthquakes’’  
‘’Yeah, but I think the fear of them had been lying under the surface since I was four, but at nine I was heading downstairs when it hit, I fell and got cut up on some broken photo frames and broke my ankle when I landed. And then at seventeen, in the last one we had, I lost my childhood best friend when it exploded a gas pipe which caused her house to fall down when it blew the wall. I never told any of you because I didn’t want you to worry about me’’ I told them before Adam laughed and pulled me in to his arms again.   
‘’You’re stupid, we always worry about you baby’’ He told me as the others agreed, ‘’I’ve always thought there was something more than travel sickness when travelling on the buses’’ He whispered with a soft laugh.   
‘’So you aren’t mad that I kept it from you?’’ I asked as I pulled away from his hug.   
‘’Of course not’’ He told me, fingers running through my hair as he smiled, ‘’but you can tell us anything, we are family Tommy, so don’t feel like you have to hide anything’’ He told me as I nodded.   
‘’I promise,’’ I told him with a smile before I turned, ‘’let’s get going, don’t want to be late for the next show’’ I laughed out to them, watching as they started to leave, I turned and replaced the bottle of tablets back in to my bag again.   
‘’You sure you’re really okay’’ Adam asked from beside me and I glanced towards him with a nod.   
‘’I’m okay now really’’ I told him before he reached out and took hold of my hand.  
‘’You’re still shaking’’ He pointed out and I grinned before pulling out of his hold and zipped my bag up,  
‘’I do for about an hour or two after’’ I shrugged out to him as I swung my bag up on to my shoulders and picked my guitar up again.  
‘’Okay, I believe you’’ Adam told me before he took my free hand in his as we headed out the dressing room and through the hallways, all the while, his thumb rubbing soft circles in to my skin as we made our way out to the busses, ready to travel to the next city and next show.


End file.
